Saturn’s Return: The Reason You’re Not Feeling Like Yourself

“But you just got an apartment! You’re engaged! You have a job! You have so much!”

This is a conversation I had with someone the other day. It’s also a conversation I have in my head maybe three times a day.

I don’t know what it is but something is going on. Whereas I thought it was just a string of bad weeks, I’m starting to fear that this feeling isn’t a fluke. This feeling that I’ve lost myself – my personality, my motivation– just won’t just go away.

I don’t sleep well. I don’t eat well. I don’t love well. I’m constantly tired, stressed, paranoid or anxious. I don’t have the drive or motivation I had a few years ago and I can’t seem to figure out how to get it back.

Yes, there are good days. But the bad days are piling up. And it just constantly feels like there’s still this nagging ache in the pit of my stomach.

I think it’s mainly from fear. Fear that I’ll have more bad days than good. Fear that nothing is going to change – I’ll always feel this way.

I tell myself it’s not depression. It’s not bipolar. It’s being a woman. Or is it? That’s the million dollar question these days, isn’t it? When do your eccentricities, your mood swings, your emotional tidal waves become more than just “being a woman.”

Do you ever feel this way? Like no matter how good your life is, it’s just not enough? It doesn’t matter if you have the perfect apartment, perfect partner, perfect job…sometimes you’re just angry or sad or unfulfilled.

This is something I’ve been working through for a while now. Being in a committed, adult relationship has forced me to take an honest look at myself. Because when you partner yourself with someone who’s cool, calm and collected every day, you’ll begin to wonder if your ups and downs aren’t so natural.

Because at this point it’s more than just a questioning of self, it’s a responsibility to someone else. My mood swings, my moments of anger and isolation aren’t acceptable all the time. As we’ve read and learned about countless times, our energy affects those around us. You can only project chaos for so long until the other person starts unraveling.

So what do I do?

A friend recently told me about Saturn’s Return.

Every 27 to 29 years, Saturn returns to the sign it was in when you were born, a cycle called The Saturn Return.

According to The Cut, during the Saturn Return—which lasts 2.5 to 3 years—you will come face to face with your own blocks and be forced to push through them. All the “mistakes” you made in the nearly three decades leading up to this seem to crystallize.

The effects of the return itself can typically be felt the entire time Saturn is in the same sign it was when you were born, usually a period that will fall sometime between ages 27 and 30. During this period, you’ll be faced with challenges and questions about the life you’re living and the life you want.

Effects of Saturn’s Return • It will ask you to accept a new heaviness, a new maturity, a new sense of responsibility • It will make you question your path and your future • It will ask you to evaluate your job, friends and partner • It will ask you to look at your fears – mortality, money problems, relationship status

In effect, Saturn’s Return is the ‘midlife crisis’ of the almost-30. It’s the time when you should be feeling like a badass adult with the apartment, clothes and salary you always wanted, but instead, you feel helpless and confused.

Understanding that you’re in this moment of Saturn Return provides a calmness to the internal chaos, however, it doesn’t solve it. That you must work on alone.

I haven’t found any real help on what to do when you’re facing Saturn Return, because I don’t think there’s any step-by-step guide. It’s just a concept, an idea, an answer – but not the answer.

According to ThoughtCo, “Saturn is simply the instigator of change, all meant to lead you toward healing and a real foundation of self. If you’re in your Saturn return, and finding it hard to cope, get used to letting go of what’s not working.”

That’s all there is, really. We just need to accept that life isn’t always going to be what we want, but we need to think of all that we have. So if you’re feeling like me and as lost and confused as ever, let’s take every day together…one day at a time. And in these days, let’s focus on appreciating what we do have and reminding each other of what’s great about the lives we’ve built for ourselves.

And as hard as it is, let’s try not to be scared. Let’s try to use this knowledge of Saturn’s Return to remind ourselves ‘this too shall pass,’ and everything happens for a reason. This feeling, this day, this ache won’t last and we will eventually, feel like ourselves again.

Age 12 – First Jupiter Return: The ancients celebrated puberty because the biological God and Goddess of creation had been awakened and it was a sacred time in one’s life. This was recognized with jubilance and honor. Jupiter rules hormones and cultural conditioning. In modern times we shame and denigrate the phase, remarking on hormonal changes that inconvenience society, and yet we wonder why teenagers self destruct, rebel, and turn to substance. This changing biology transforms the lower body and activates the spirit, and yet we are not prepared or nurtured for this powerful change.

Age 14 – Jupiter opposes Saturn: The resistance to authority and conditioning is activated here, along with self consciousness and the lure into danger. This is the moment a young person can typically choose between ‘indulgence, laziness, and self pleasure’ (Jupiter) in leaving school or ‘responsibility, expectation, and conforming to authority’ (Saturn) in remaining in school or focusing on the future. The karmic lesson is revealed around this period. We face intimidating figures of authority, often threatening with ‘what until you’re in the real world’ shaking confidence even more

Age 21 – Uranus squares natal Uranus: 21 is the age globally recognized as completed transition into adulthood. This period indicates self expression and experimentation, a time for tattoos and lilac hair and inspiration. It’s a favorable time for sparking people’s interest in astrology. Political activity, protest, and rebellion can begin around here. Cosmically, this is a time where people learn a lot about themselves and generate good self awareness, they start to feel wholly in their body, or as if fogginess has dissolved

Age 27-30 – First Saturn Return: Everything you have built until this point is under threat. Saturn writes his first report card, and it will rely on how intimate and satisfactory you have been in facilitating Saturn’s condition in the natal chart. This is the biggest overhaul we experience on a physical/mental level, when the anchor of the chart completes transit and writes a new criteria. We are given 29 years because the reading material and substance is so profound. Harsh reality hits with shattering force. It’s time to become an adult.

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